Adopted: Adopted children have an Adoption Order.  

Adoption Order: Once a child has an Adoption Order, the adopters become the child’s legal parents. 

Care experienced: Children who have at some point lived in local authority care.  

Early permanence: The child is placed with carers who are approved as both foster carers and adopters. The primary plan is adoption, though social workers continue to work with the birth family to explore the possibility of the child being returned to them. The carers act as the child’s foster carers up until the point when the child’s legal status is changed to ‘placed for adoption’. These placements are intended to help children build early attachments to carers while reducing everyone’s waiting times. There are other terms for early permanence, including ‘Foster to Adopt’, ‘Dual Approval’ and ‘Concurrency’.    

Kinship care: Children in Kinship Care are being parented by wider family members (eg grandparents) or sometimes close family friends. There are different types of Kinship, including Special Guardianship.  

Looked After: These children are under local authority care. Up to 90%  live with foster families. A minority of children live in Children’s Homes, residential schools, secure units and other settings.  

Placed for adoption: These children have started living with their adoptive families, pending an Adoption Order. 

Placement Order: Children with a Placement Order can legally be placed with a family for adoption.  

Previously looked after: Children who have been moved into adoptive families or are living permanently with wider family members, under some sort of Kinship arrangement.